THUMB AREA — The numbers of COVID-19 cases in the Thumb remain mostly unchanged on Friday, as the reported cases and deaths in the state took a slight decrease.

There have been 1,350 new cases of COVID-19 and 108 new deaths reported in Michigan, both less than the numbers reported on Thursday.

That brings total number of cases in Michigan to 36,641 and the total number of deaths to 3,085.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Tuscola County increased slightly to 78 confirmed with 12 deaths.

Sanilac County still has 34 cases with four deaths.

Huron County remains unchanged at 10 cases with no deaths.

The state of Michigan is still encouraging residents to seek testing, noting that testing is critical to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Earlier this week the state expanded its testing criteria to include any Michigander that is displaying mild symptoms and any essential worker still reporting to work regardless of being symptomatic.

“Testing remains critical to our efforts to slow the spread of the virus,” said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, MDHHS chief medical executive and chief deputy for health in a press release. “Increased testing helps us understand where this disease is so we can identify people at highest risk and make sure we are quickly implementing best practices for preventing further cases and deaths.”

Common COVID-19 symptoms include fever, dry cough and shortness of breath. Those who experience symptoms should call their health care provider to discuss getting an order for testing. If a health care provider is unavailable, please contact the nearby testing site to discuss getting an order for testing; in some cases, an order may not be necessary.

Nearby sites can be found by visiting Michigan.gov/CoronavirusTest and entering the ZIP code.

The test is free for most people. Many insurance providers are waiving copays, and those with Medicaid or the Healthy Michigan Plan also have no cost.

According to the press release, MDHHS would like to see 15,000 tests completed daily in Michigan per recommendations by the Harvard Global Health Institute, which published a recommendation of 152 tests per day per 100,000 population to begin to re-open the United States. That level of testing is necessary to identify the majority of people who are infected, and isolate them from people who are healthy, according to the Harvard researchers.